Ew! What the heck is this ingredient?

[parsleysage]

I decided to take Joni off her Meow Mix kitten formula because she wasn't really eating and if I mixed it with the Simply Nourish dry food, she just picked out the higher quality kibbles.

Today I picked up the bag and really read through the ingredients. Besides all the awful nasties like brewer's rice, corn gluten meal, and soybean meal - plus some things you should just never, ever see including Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 2!! - there was an ingredient called Animal Digest.

I have looked at dozens of bags and cans of cat food over the last four or so months since Strange Cat was still pregnant with Simon & Garfunkel and their sisters - and I haven't seen that in any of them. I looked it up on Wikipedia...

As defined by the AAFCO, it is material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed.

A cooked-down broth made from specified or unspecified parts of animals (depending on the type of digest used). If the source is unspecified (e.g. "Animal" or "Poultry", the animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on[citation needed].

FDA: Digests, which are materials treated with heat, enzymes and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. Only a small amount of a "chicken digest" is needed to produce a "Chicken Flavored Cat Food," even though no actual chicken is added to the food.

I still can't really tell what it is based on that description, but it sounds gross. Would this ever appear in anything but the lowest of the low quality cat foods?

 

[auntie crazy]

Originally Posted by parsleysage

...

I still can't really tell what it is based on that description, but it sounds gross. Would this ever appear in anything but the lowest of the low quality cat foods?

You see animal digest most often in mid- to low-grade kibble, usually used as a coating to entice the cats to eat the product. And, yes, it's verra gross.

Truthaboutpetfood.com has a blog that, among other topics, discusses the inclusion of ingredients such as this; you might find it interesting.

AC

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Oddly enough, some of the prescription cat foods contain animal digest! Last time I looked, Purina K/D dry had it in there!!!!! (I never bought it because of that fact)

 

[ldg]

OK, you want to really get grossed out? I was looking up euthanization data for animals and shelters and stumbled on this:

http://www.naturalnews.com/012647.html
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/fo...age1050731/pg1
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-fo...pets-dog-food/

 

[just mike]

Originally Posted by parsleysage

I decided to take Joni off her Meow Mix kitten formula because she wasn't really eating and if I mixed it with the Simply Nourish dry food, she just picked out the higher quality kibbles.

I don't usually use Wikipedia as a verifiable source but I do think they offer an accurate description of what animal digest is in pet food:

"
Animal Digest is a common ingredient used in pet foods. As defined by the AAFCO, it is material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed.
A cooked-down broth made from specified or unspecified parts of animals (depending on the type of digest used). If the source is unspecified (e.g. "Animal" or "Poultry", the animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on[citation needed].
FDA: Digests, which are materials treated with heat, enzymes and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. Only a small amount of a "chicken digest" is needed to produce a "Chicken Flavored Cat Food," even though no actual chicken is added to the food. - (FDA)"

And there you have it

 

[furryfriends50]

If companies didn't coat their dry foods with things like animal digest (or even leftover restaurant grease!) I don't think cats would go near it. But the addition of those ingrediants is repulsive to me, I wouldn't eat it, so why would I feed them to my pets?

 

[parsleysage]

Originally Posted by furryfriends50

If companies didn't coat their dry foods with things like animal digest (or even leftover restaurant grease!) I don't think cats would go near it. But the addition of those ingrediants is repulsive to me, I wouldn't eat it, so why would I feed them to my pets?

Totally agreed -

I wish I had known she was eating Meow Mix at her old mom's house, I would have brought some food over! Of course she won't touch wet food now

but I'm hoping she'll warm up to it soon!

 

[ducman69]

Originally Posted by furryfriends50

If companies didn't coat their dry foods with things like animal digest (or even leftover restaurant grease!) I don't think cats would go near it. But the addition of those ingrediants is repulsive to me, I wouldn't eat it, so why would I feed them to my pets?

There are plenty of high quality dry foods that have the same basic ingredients as in wet food (in fact, often far superior to bargain basement wet food especially those with gravy with byproducts and sugar added), just prepared in a different fashion.

The fat used in any quality dry food will also be a named fat, and thus cannot be restaurant grease or 4-D animals and is from the stated slaughtered animal in a USDA inspected safe facility by ingredient definition. The Wilderness dry we feed for example uses quality chicken fat.

 

[parsleysage]

Originally Posted by Ducman69

The Wilderness dry we feed for example uses quality chicken fat.

True - but this is Meow Mix we're talking about. According to the Wikipedia article (granting that it is Wikipedia, and also that the claim needs a citation), if the source isn't specified it could indeed contain 4-D animals. I trust a company like Blue Buffalo but Del Monte? ...maybe not so much.